Short Fiction · Chapter
Frost explained
In a pavilion at a skating rink, the governor, bishop, mayor, and Yegor Ivanitch discuss the harshness of winter frost.
What happens
In a pavilion at a skating rink, the governor, bishop, mayor, and Yegor Ivanitch discuss the harshness of winter frost. Yegor Ivanitch vividly recounts his childhood suffering as a poor orphan leading a blind woman through the cold, and his later brutal experiences as a shopboy and merchant. The governor shares a war memory, and the bishop recalls nearly freezing in Siberia. They reflect on human endurance and suffering, and when a frozen policeman arrives, they offer him mulled wine, symbolizing a thawing of the soul. The chapter contrasts the comfort of the wealthy with the misery of the poor in extreme cold.
Themes in this chapter
Suffering and Compassion
The chapter focuses on the physical and emotional suffering caused by frost, and the compassion shown by the governor and mayor in offering mulled wine to the frozen policeman.
Social Class and Inequality
Yegor Ivanitch contrasts the frost as a pleasure for the well-fed and well-clothed, but a great evil for the working man, beggar, and orphan.
The Passage of Time
The old men reminisce about past sufferings, and Yegor Ivanitch notes that while he now has a fur coat and stove, the memory of frost remains vivid.
Characters to notice
- Yegor Ivanitch
Recounts his childhood as a homeless orphan leading a blind woman, and his harsh life as a shopboy and merchant in the frost.
- The Policeman
A young policeman with a crimson nose, covered in frost, enters the pavilion and is offered mulled wine by the governor and mayor.
- The Stranger
The governor, bishop, and mayor are present, discussing the frost and sharing memories of suffering.
Key passages
“When your soul is frozen you don’t know what you are doing: you are ready to leave the old woman with no one to guide her, or to pull a hot roll from off a hawker’s tray, or to fight with someone.”
Extreme cold numbs the soul, making a person act irrationally or cruelly.
Yegor Ivanitch describes the moral and emotional degradation caused by frost.
“The frost makes one spiteful and drives one to drink.”
Cold weather breeds anger and alcoholism.
Yegor Ivanitch explains how frost turned him cruel and led to drinking.
“They thought of that in man which is higher than good birth, higher than rank and wealth and learning, of that which brings the lowest beggar near to God: of the helplessness of man, of his sufferings and his patience.”
The old men reflected on universal human vulnerability and endurance, which transcends social status.
The governor, bishop, and mayor share a moment of contemplation on shared humanity.